Life
by Chryselephantine38
Summary: When Vereesa is unable to sleep, Rhonin attempts to quietly comfort her. Speaking with her to ease her pain, Rhonin is unable to avoid the subject of his own mortality. (This summary is really bad, I don't really know how to explain it.) RhoninxVereesa.


_Something I've had laying around for awhile now but never got around to finishing before. I started writing it shortly after Rhonin was announced dead ( ;-; ) and I decided to post it._

Its late when Rhonin's awoken by his wife's tempered dreams. She claws at her abdomen and the covers shielding it. Her beautiful face is strained and tears bead beneath her eyelids and slowly trace her jawline. It pains him but there's not much he can do for her. He is a not a Priest who can mend her fevered spirits, nor is he a Paladin who can bless her with ease. He is a mage, a maverick mage, who can spark only a fire between his thumb and finger to impress her. Though she is often not very impressed.

Without uttering a sound, his arms cloak over her much-smaller form and encapture her in his bodily warmth. She visibly calms and he marvels at how small she actually is - holding her like this, it reminds him that she's more than a Ranger General, she is a woman. Beautiful but fragile, as long-lived as she is.

Her eyes slowly flutter open and he quickly tries to feign slumber. "I know you're awake already," She grumbled with both hands stroking his arm.

The red-headed mage opens only one eye to watch her and silently enjoys the contact: "How could you tell?"

"I couldn't hear you snoring," she said simply, the smallest hint of humor trailing not too far behind.

He released a faint chuckle which croaked in the back of his throat. He was undeniably still tired but he could always make time to speak. Both eyes now watched the most subtle movements in her face.

"What are you looking at?" She tried her best to sound annoyed, to display her straight-laced side like always, but with him, this was impossible.

"A being that far surpasses me in every way," He replied humbly while no sentiments of sarcasm were present at all.

"If that is so, then why do you hold me like this when you are so much lesser?" Her clear blue eyes are challenging and her long eyebrow quirks in provocation.

His arm that was draped around her lifted and the hand that followed slowly took her hand into it, almost enveloping it. He brings it to his mouth and his lips brush it once, twice, three times before he decides to speak again. "Because I am an impudent man who cannot let pass such a chance as this." He whispered lowly.

Her smooth-skinned hand, pale against his bronzed complexion, caressed his face carefully, "Well, you have certainly been an opportunist in my eyes since the first time that we had met."

He shifts to allow his other hand to be freed from the underside of his torso and it finds hers. Calloused and burned from countless spells gone wrong, they are largely in contrast with hers, which are smooth and do not hold any blemish despite her constant practice with the bow, "And you have always been a beauty."

She quickly tries to hide a smile beneath the covers of their shared bed but Rhonin is able to see it and through the darkness, a tiny tinge of pink against pale cheeks is clear as day. "To say such things, you're clearly a flirt. Are you sure that you're with wife?"

"Hmm," he hummed quietly. Once again, he shifted his position and now held her tightly against his chest, "If I was not with wife, I would have no companion in which to share this bed with and no one would be held against me like this. My beloved children would not wake me at the break of dawn. If I were just a simple flirt without you attached, then dare I say, I would no longer have the will to woo another woman in this century."

"And the next century?" Vereesa asked as she pecked lightly, feather-lightly, against his broad chest with her lips and her slim arms tried their hardest to reach around his whole form.

Noticeably, he tenderly kissed her forehead and she could feel his smile against her hairline: "I do not have anything more than this century and if I do, then it will not be more than a year or two, hardly enough time to find a woman who would love an old man such as that."

The Ranger General visibly saddened, her long ears drooping down the sides of her face, laying flat like her snow-white hair, "It is I who must survive the centuries after this without you, is it not?"

His hand smoothed over her hair slowly, "That is so. The price that we pay for marrying outside of our races is more than the disapproving comments of those old-fashioned women." He said with a faint tone of humor.

She let out a bittersweet laugh and for the second time that night, Rhonin noticed the water bead and seep over the edge of his wife's eyes, "But you are still young and we have much time to be together,"

"If it were possible, I would stay with you until my body crumbled away to dust, but then I am sure you wouldn't want such a withered man to stay by your side." His thumb softly wiped the tears away, leaving a smear of liquid over her cheeks.

"It is of no consequence whether you are young or old, handsome or ugly, even that you have a physical body. To me, you will always be my Rhonin and if you could stay longer, then I would accept you in any form that is permitted to me."

"You have always been so very passionate but it seems I'm the only one who can notice such a trait. One day, I will surely die and at that point, I hope for it to be for the good of Azeroth. I am young still, as you say, but I do not believe that I will live until I am grey."

"Is Azeroth of such importance?"

"There is no place that I love more than the place that lingers beside you but Azeroth is a place important to many more people - heroes and civillians - and it is the responsibility of all who ever stepped foot on the lands to protect it until their last breath."

"Then, I will ask you a favor."

"Anything, my dear."

Her blue eyes still glistened with unshed tears but showed determination deeply within them, "When you protect this precious Azeroth of yours, remember the children and I until you are forced to take that last breath and allow me to be there when you release your final remnants of life."

He looked taken aback then tucked her head under his chin, lightly resting it atop her soft tresses, "Is that truly what you wish?"

"More than anything in this world, I want to be with you until the end."

"Then I will try my utmost to grant your wish. If I am unable to do so, know that from now until then, you and the children are always foremost in my mind."

After what seemed like hours, Rhonin is lulled to sleep by the quiet, still holding his wife closely. Unbeknownst to him, her tears did not stop that night until her eyes could no longer take the strain and forced themselves closed, allowing her to sleep.


End file.
